


Wilted Leaves

by micehell



Series: SEISyUN-ish world [4]
Category: Johnny's Entertainment, TOKIO
Genre: AU (SEISyUN-ish world), Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-28
Updated: 2011-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-11 12:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micehell/pseuds/micehell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing had gone right since they’d left camp that morning, so it’s just Koichi, Go, Tsuyoshi, and Ken with him, all of them looking at Nagase (the oldest, the most experienced) for direction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wilted Leaves

**Author's Note:**

> About the series: I call this a SEISyUN-ish type world, in that it's kind of post-Robot Apocalyptic in character and it was heavily inspired by the PV (of course), but it's not the PV storyline. For one thing, the series sort of mirrors the time from when the guys would have first joined the agency in real life to a little past their debut (or it will when it's finished (whenever _that_ might be!) ;), so not the right timeline for the PV, plus I tend to like happier endings, oi. *snork*
> 
> About the story: On the timeline of the series this comes just after [For the Sake of That One Moment](http://archiveofourown.org/works/478510). It’s the setup for the part where Nagase’s backstory gets explained, which will eventually become the start of the main story line… yeah, all the rest of this has just been backstory or future fic. ;) All the ‘kids’ are thirteen in this.

Even though it was miles away from the Jimusho’s main camp, they’d been to Seto earlier that summer. One of the scout trainees had come down with chicken pox and Higashi had basically shoved everyone who hadn’t already had it out the door. Gussan and Leader had been in the group that got conscripted to stay behind (old enough or at least lived on the Grid long enough to have been vaccinated), but even though Nagase and Mabo had both been vaccinated, too, they’d been shipped out with most of the other juniors.

They’d been split into smaller groups to look less suspicious, each one managed by some of the older juniors or one of the officers. After they’d been allowed to go back, Taichi had told Nagase horror stories about getting stuck under Nakai and Kimura, who had apparently found it easier to treat him as if he were as big a goofball as Tsuyoshi and Shingo (and then Taichi had promptly hit Nagase for saying he was), but Nagase and Mabo had gotten lucky by getting in Sakamoto and Nagano’s group.

It could have been horrible, Sakamoto always so super serious (super anxious, Inocchi said) when he was in charge, but even though Nagano never openly argued with him, he also still managed to keep things on a more easygoing level. They’d camped on the outskirts of Seto, mainly living off fish from a nearby stream and the (surprisingly good) mystery dishes Nagano could cobble together from rations. But even the two older juniors were antsy after a week had passed, so when smells like takoyaki, yakisoba, and karaage started permeating the air, along with excited voices from the villagers, it didn’t take long for even Sakamoto to give in to Nagase, Go, and Ken’s (and Inocchi and Mabo’s, too, though they tried to deny it) concerted whining.

They’d had no real money (the juniors rarely did), but while the village wasn’t actively part of the resistance, there were those who wore the subtle signs of being friendly to it: there a flag over a booth with a rising sun hidden in the pattern, here a vendor with a yukata edged in black sakura blossoms. The tiny, stylized _J_ that they always wore somewhere (mostly in the pattern of their clothes, but sometimes not, Nagase’s on an earring, Mabo’s on the dog collar bracelet he claimed looked cool, Ken’s tattooed on the web between his right ring and index fingers) was like a pass; free food or drinks from some, even change handed back when no payment had been made at one of the vendors. 

It wasn’t much change, just loose yen (which was a little risky, since anything but digital payments were against the law, but the smaller villages tended to have their own economy, off the books as it were, and unless they were bored and just looking for an excuse to hurt something, the Void patrols usually ignored it), but the juniors were all excited, looking to Sakamoto and Nagano for permission to keep it. Sakamoto looked torn, obviously wanting to keep as low a profile as possible, but Nagano bowed his thanks to the vendor, who smiled brightly at his manners before going on to the next customer. 

Sakamoto and Nagano divided the money between them, Sakamoto taking Inocchi and Mabo with him to let them have their first (that he knew of) taste of beer and Nagano took the younger ones with him to play games. 

They played ring toss and scooped for goldfish and listened to Go explain why it wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t gotten a single fish (even though it really actually was, since he wasn’t patient enough for it). Nagase and Ken just laughed at him until Nagano cuffed all three of them on the head and then gave them candy floss; pink, purple, and baby blue like the sky.

The sky above the village today is dark, rain about to set in, and Nagase wishes that Nagano was there this time. Or rather that they’d never gotten separated from Okamoto, who’d been the one leading them through their scout training. But nothing had gone right since they’d left camp that morning, so it’s just Koichi, Go, Tsuyoshi, and Ken with Nagase, all of them looking at him (the oldest, the most experienced) for direction. 

Part of Nagase wants to say that he’s only the oldest by a couple of months in Koichi’s case, and less than a year in Ken’s, but just the thought of Ken being the one everyone looked to for direction makes him want to giggle, so he bites it back. They’re all muddy and tired and starving, and if they’re lucky (which they so deserve after this day), they can find one of those villagers who’d helped before. Someone who’d be willing to drive them closer to their camp, maybe, or even just give them a place to store their guns and lend them some money for the train back. If they’re really lucky someone will have one of their safe phones some of the sympathizers use to pass on information and they’ll be able to contact Okamoto to let him know where they are, but at this point Nagase would settle for even just something to eat and be happy about it.

Their luck stays crappy, though, since the first thing they see when they enter the village is a Void patrol. They’d concealed their weapons in the woods by the river, where they’d camped before, so there’s nothing to give away what they are, but it takes everything they have to keep walking as if nothing is wrong.

Nagase spots the vendor who’d slipped them the money when they get to the village square, but he’s not smiling today, and Nagase feels himself grow cold. The men interrogating the vendor aren’t just a patrol, but actual Void pilots, the best of the best. The human component that’s usually obscured by the mecha face around it is visible, but there’s not much human in it anymore. Certainly no anger or even malice in their eyes as they beat the man before them, just calculation in what’s the quickest way to break him down.

The man standing at their back, like a dog told to stay, is totally human. He’s obviously been acting as their guide, the digital Notice in his hand letting everyone know they’re on a manhunt, not just a general roundup. The vendor isn’t who they’re after or they’d have just taken him, but he’d been marked by the guide as a likely source of information. He might be exactly what the guide thought he was, he might not be; the humans who made their living by giving up others to the Voids, the worst of the worst, weren’t particular like that. 

The guide had likely passed through the village days or even months ago, hiding what he was doing with some fake story of car or money trouble, anything to gain sympathy. He’d have spied on everyone, figuring out who had power and who was just a pawn. The collaborators who still had any shred of decency left always verified who were actual members of the various resistance groups and who weren’t, but this one would have just paid some of the less reputable people in town to give them names, not caring that they were usually just selling out anyone they didn’t like.

Nagase knows how collaborators work because most everyone knows. It’s a fact of life, like the sky being blue, water being wet, Voids being something to steer away from if you can help it. He knows how this collaborator works because he knows _him_. Because he’s seen the asshole’s lack of compassion and venality up close. 

The Void pilots scare him because they could so easily bring death or prison, but Endo scares him even more. As much as he’d really rather avoid it, Nagase can deal with maybe dying; it’s something they all face every day. What he can’t deal with is everyone finding out what he’s only told Johnny-san and Higashi about, and only then because he had to. He still remembers the way Kojima had reacted on that first mission when he’d thought Nagase was from the camps, the disdain that Kojima obviously felt for anyone who’d gotten away by whatever means they could. Gussan had tried to tell him later that it was just Kojima being bitchy about his own issues, but Nagase knew better than to accept that as anything but a polite lie. It’s not like Kojima was the first person Nagase had met who felt that way.

There's really nothing they can do to hide that wouldn’t just draw attention, so Nagase does his best with what he has to hand. He slouches a little, bending at the waist to diminish his height as best he can. He lets the long hair that Okamoto had groused at cover his face instead of pushing it back behind his ear like he usually does. He keeps his eyes a little down and leads the others through the thickest part of the crowd that had gathered at the edges of the town square (close enough to see what’s going on, far enough away not to be caught up in it), hoping it’s enough to blend in.

But luck really hates Nagase that day and Endo looks right at him just when he’s almost made it out of the square. His heart stops for a moment when Endo grabs him and drags him to the pilots, but they ignore him, intent on their job. 

Koichi and the others ignore him, too, just like they’ve been trained, though in passing glances Nagase can see the strain in the more hot headed of them. But Rule #1 is in effect at all times, and trying to do something stupid like take on armed Void pilots with nothing but the knives they have on them (or the tiny little air pistol Tsuyoshi insists on taping to his leg no matter how many hairs he loses when he takes it off) is pretty much guaranteed to break it. Nagase just hopes that Rule #2 doesn’t come into play before it’s all over.

Endo’s still trying to get the pilots’ attention even while he holds onto Nagase’s arm with a grip that fucking hurts. Nagase usually tries to hide when he’s in pain (unless he thinks he can con someone out of food by showing it), but he lets out a cry when Endo grips harder. Anything that helps the pilots see him as a kid, as nothing to be concerned about, is good in his books.

“I worked with his father up at the Gunma camp, and even though his old man gave the kid the best of everything, the brat still tried to help some people escape. His father’s one of the camp bosses, you know, which just makes it worse, but the kid just wouldn’t learn. His father had to make him the horse for some of the raider gangs, but the little bastard must have got out of that, too.” 

Endo’s not usually that talkative, not from Nagase’s time knowing him anyway, and Nagase just hopes the others are too far away to hear it. But getting ignored while you’re talking to someone, especially someone you’re trying to impress, is hard even on dirtbags apparently, so Endo keeps going, trying to fill in their lack of response with his own voice. “His old man would pay good money to get him back, that I can guarantee.”

One of the pilots turns to him at that, the look of disdain clear on his face. “Let me get this straight. You want us to get diverted from our mission, the one that you’ve presented us not one good lead on, to take a kid back to some low level camp boss who couldn’t control him in the first place, and our reward for doing this is what _you_ would consider good money.”

Even someone as notoriously self-involved as Endo can hear the note of warning in that and he shuts up fast. He doesn’t let go of Nagase, though, not even when the pilots finally kick the vendor loose, letting the poor guy’s family pick him up and carry him off since there’s no way he’s moving on his on. The look of disdain is gone from their faces as they pack up to leave, their minds on the next stop and unconcerned about anything in the village except for the time it’s taken, but when the one pilot (or maybe the other, they’re hard to tell apart with all the bioware wired into their heads) sees that Nagase’s still there, a quick flash of irritation crosses his face.

“Let the kid go already and come on. He managed to survive whatever games you guys were playing with him, but now he’s just one more brat that’ll die from living off the grid. Either that or he’ll do something even more stupid and he’ll just wind up back in the camp later. He’s not worth our time either way.”

Endo’s always been a greedy bastard, and he hates to let go of any prize, but he throws Nagase down, gives him a kick for good measure, then follows after the pilots as they head back to their transport.

Even Koichi almost breaks then, obviously wanting to come pick Nagase up, but they manage to keep it in until they can all make their way as quietly as they can back to their weapons’ cache. At that point all bets are off, and they swarm over him, turning him this way and that looking for any injuries. There’s nothing but bruises, but Nagase can’t quite figure out how to tell them that, everything swirling around his head. He loses track of what they’re saying ( _are you okay_ , _find Okamoto_ , _get back to camp some way_ ) even though he really wants to know what they heard, but the spent adrenalin in his body is making his knees feel like water and he winds up sitting down too fast (another bruise) as he waits for everything to stop moving.

As best he can tell, they didn’t hear what Endo had said, and he’s so focused on that that he winds up screwing up the worst he has all day. The others don’t know, have never met Endo before, so they’ve just got Tsuyoshi’s range finder set to scan for mecha, the only danger they think might be around. Nagase should have known better, though; at the very least he should have warned them to keep their guard up for lone humans as well, but Nagase’s as surprised as the rest of them when Endo gets the drop on them.

Endo’s face is back to its normal cockiness now that there are no Voids around to kiss up to. He’s sneering when he says to Nagase, “I knew you were trouble when I saw you again. You always were. With those weapons and that tech I’m betting you’re one of those freak resistance fighters now.”

The fact that it’s obvious they’re not just village kids is in Endo’s favor. Not even Void pilots would overlook their weaponry; Nagase and the others are dead if Endo calls them in now. But for all his cockiness, there’s something cagy about the man. The same look that Taichi always gets when he’s planning something explosive and knows that he’s likely to be doing latrine duty for it later. Nagase almost smiles when he guesses, “All alone now? Did those pilots decide you weren’t worth taking along after all?”

It’s a direct hit, and Endo’s face goes beet red in seconds. He’d made them all kick their weapons to him when he’d come up, playing it cautious, but anger’s making him careless now, and he only has Nagase and Ken in his line of sight when he slaps Nagase.

The gun Endo has trained on the two in front of him keep the others from attacking, but they use the distraction to slip away. The woods cover them up before Endo even thinks to miss them, and he only gets angrier when he finally notices. He hits Ken on the side of the face with his gun in retaliation, and Ken drops to the ground, cradling a split lip that’s seeping blood. 

Nagase thinks about how stupid it is to risk damaging a weapon like that to distract himself from doing anything monumentally stupid himself. Endo’s not even looking for the others, assuming that since he’d run away at the first sign of trouble, leaving any supposed friends behind, that everyone would. But Nagase can hear them, quiet as they are, in the woods around, just looking for their chance. He hopes they’ve at least sent Go out to look for Okamoto or any other kind of help he can get, but whether there’re two of them in the woods or three, Endo has their guns. Careless as he is, there’s no way they’re turning the tables and surprising him without weapons of their own.

Or at least a really good distraction, which Endo seems to be providing himself, starting to pace in front of them as he gets more and more upset. “Those bastards, acting all high and mighty. Even with all that bioware, they wouldn’t last an hour in the camps. Act all prissy and perfect, like they’ve never made a mistake, and say they’re going to strike me off the guide list just because I didn’t find their damn dead man walking right away. Which is all your fault, you little brat.” 

He kicks at Nagase as he passes him. It doesn’t hurt, Endo too busy being crazy to aim properly, but Nagase makes sure he cries out like he did before. With the pilots he’d been trying to make them underestimate him; with Endo he’s playing into the man’s ego. He’d learned the hard way that Endo takes it as a challenge when his victims don’t cry, and Nagase’s hoping to get all of them out of this mess with as little damage as possible.

“Your old man will make it up to me, though. I’ll make sure of that.”

He seems to calm down at the thought, and Nagase wonders what he can say that’ll get him going again, but not get him going too much. It’s subtle, something Nagase’s not even under the best of circumstances, so all he can come up with is, “Like my father would raise a finger to help you if the Voids have written you off.”

Ken looks startled, not knowing what Nagase’s talking about, but Endo isn’t confused at all. And as stupid as he is, he can’t deny Nagase’s right, not when he’s worked with his father for years. Takumi’s never lifted a finger for anyone unless he got some profit from him. He might actually pay some money to get his son back, even after he’d thrown him away, he’s just that kind of bastard, but a low end gang member that’s out of favor with his own bosses certainly isn’t anyone Takumi would bother with.

Endo looks scared then, but also calculating. He’s not the sharpest crayon in the box, but he’s not unlike his own boss, always looking to his profit, and like a lot of sick fucks, he’s damn perceptive about knowing someone’s weak spots. Before Nagase can even think to stand in the way, Endo has Ken pulled up in front of him, one arm around his neck holding him in place, the gun hand resting on Ken’s shoulder just to tease. 

His fear’s fading now that Endo’s focused on money again, and he laughs as Ken pulls at his arm, trying to get more air. “You always did have a soft heart for strays, and this one has big ol’ puppy dog eyes. I bet you’ll quietly follow me all the way back to the camp as long as I have him. And if your father doesn’t want to cough up the money for either one of you… well, I can always find someone who’ll pay for fresh meat.”

Even knowing Endo won’t get that far, it still scares Nagase a little; he’d heard the threat often enough when he’d lived at the camp and hadn’t done what his father wanted, and he’d seen enough of what went on in the tents at the camp’s edge to know that Ken, small and cute and seemingly helpless even though he could be damn dangerous when he set his mind to it, would fetch Endo a high price.

Nagase doesn’t have much time to worry about it though before a shot rings out and Endo drops, taking Ken with him. Endo had fired his weapon as he died, but Okamoto had taken into account that he might, and all the shot does is make Ken deaf in one ear for a couple of hours.

Ken’s still complaining about it when they get back to base. Combined with the big bruise across his cheek and the still bloody lip, he’s given the full mother hen act by Nagano almost as soon as he crosses the gate. Ken will milk it until even Nagano’s sympathy runs out, but right now Nagase thinks Ken actually needs the comfort. He knows he wishes Leader was the one to meet him.

Instead he gets Higashi and Gussan, both of them looking angry. Nagase’s pretty sure that in Higashi’s case, the anger’s mostly just masking his worry. He’d warned Nagase when he’d first arrived that he really needed to tell the others in his group about where he’d been before he’d joined Johnny’s, or just Gussan at the very least, but he’s always let Nagase keep his silence like he wants to. There’s no one in the camp, Johnny-san included, who didn’t have something in their past they’d rather hide, and they all understand; not asking about it is even Rule #5 on the list.

Gussan though… Nagase’s pretty sure that all his anger is masking is more anger. And from the riot act he reads Nagase (being careless enough to get separated from Okamoto in the first place, not having sent someone into the village to scout it first, not setting a guard when they’d finally got back to their camp), it’s not going away soon. He’s disappointed that Nagase, who’s one of his better fighters, hadn’t dealt with things better, and he lets it show even as Leader’s finally allowed to cluck and fuss over all of Nagase’s cuts and bruises.

Having Gussan disappointed with him hurts worse than any of the bruises, which is just what Gussan wants. He’s just trying to make sure that Nagase learns the lesson and doesn’t repeat the mistake. (He’s not immune to Nagase’s own puppy dog eyes, though, and later that night he’ll let Nagase curl up into the giant futon that he and Taichi share, putting him between them even though Nagase always pretends to be above that.)

For all the bad luck he’s had that day, Nagase goes to sleep knowing that the good luck that’s finally on his side didn’t end with Endo getting killed or finally being safe back home. Because of everything Gussan had yelled at him about, not one bit of it was about who Nagase had once been, and that was the biggest comfort of all.

/story

**Author's Note:**

> Story notes (very long for such a short story ;):
> 
>   * 1\. The scout trainee that gets the chicken pox was Shingo, just in case it makes anyone happy. ;) In this AU he’s already with a group, of course, but they make the juniors do scout training until around 16. 
>   * 2\. I keep mentioning resistance _groups_ instead of just saying Johnny’s, and that’s because Johnny’s, obviously, isn’t the only one. It would be a little weird that the only resistance group around was made up of pretty boys. ;) But Johnny-san likes to let his groups be used for folk stories and the like (think of pulp westerns and dime novels that made folk heroes out of various people (usually criminals like Billy the Kid, sadly, but the baseline idea is the same), trying to give the people heroes they can root for, which is why he likes to recruit pretty boys (and not just because he’s an old pervert *koffkoff*). He says he doesn’t take in girls just to keep the chance of unplanned for kids down, since they already have plenty of orphans at the Creche, after all ~~but it’s totally unnecessary since most of his guys are gay, of course~~. *snork* 
>   * 3\. Phones and ‘money’ are something that are controlled and tracked on the grid, so the resistance groups have to be careful of what phones they use and what they buy if they buy something legally (though in the village near their main camp, they have a trade system set up, so no cash or electronic payments needed). In this AU, the grid means all the things that use electronic/digital devices, which are all monitored by the Voids and used to track everything people do (the Voids have a _lot_ of computer power ;). Even the roads have sensors in them that cars made after the invasion all send signals to, letting where you go (and how many people are in the car) be tracked, so no one can travel freely any way but foot (and even that might get picked up by CCTV cameras, so going anywhere in any of the more urban environments is taking the chance of being watched). The resistance groups mainly stay in the country, and they only use cars that were made before the invasion for short runs (less chance of being caught), or stick to the trains or walking. They have to have weapons caches all over, though, since they can’t carry weapons on the train, which has sensors in it as well. 
>   * 4\. The rules Nagase thinks about were the ones from the earliest story on the timeline, the ones that hang up on the wall of the Jimusho's main barracks. 
>   * 5\. The upper echelon of Voids aren’t human at all, but the main body of their mecha/patrols/workers/etc are. However the mecha are mostly vat grown humans who are implanted with bioware to the point they mainly don’t have human emotions left at all. I figure sometimes the tech fails and some of their pilots work for the resistance, too, but that’s just me thinking and no part of the main story at all. ;) 
>   * 6\. Endo is actually the name of the evil greasy agency manager in _Mukodono 2003_ , just in case you wanted to get a general picture of him. ;) 
>   * 7\. When Endo says Nagase’s father made him ‘a horse for one of the raider gangs’, he means stalking horse for one of the gangs that Nagase had talked about before, with the kid they come across on the first mission together. You’ll get more on that in the next story. *evil laugh* 
>   * 8\. Yes, there is a reason Nagase’s father has a different name, but that’s in the next part, too. *more evil laughing* 
>   * 9\. And finally, just because it amuses me, this is what I'm picturing Okamoto like for this story ;)
> 

> 
> [that hair!](http://pics.livejournal.com/micehell/pic/001rr0fb/)


End file.
